Making Choices in Life's Journey

Ever wonder what your life would have been like if you had made that other decision? So often we come to a fork in the road of life and we are forced to choose one path or the other.

There are ten's of thousands of choices we make in a lifetime and each one expressly effects our lives. Yet not to the degree that the few life changing opportunities do. Each time we are left with a choice we are brought to a fork in the middle of our life's road.

Imagine walking down a path in the woods and coming to a place where the path splits in two. You are left wondering, which direction should I choose? You try to peer down each path as far as you can see, but it does not reveal what is in store for you.

You think in your mind whatever path I choose there is no turning back. You feel helpless to make the correct choice yet you realize a choice must indeed be made. You cannot remain at the fork in the road.

Finally you choose the path to the right, and you begin walking. At the beginning everything seems to be fine and dandy. The trek appears to be without hardship, so you galantly trot your way along the path in the woods.

As the time ticks away and the sun begins to set you begin to wonder if you made the correct choice. You would not have come in this direction if you knew it was going to take this long. You begin to worry as strange sounds and ominous echos are heard all around. It becomes more diffult to see ahead of you. And the path is not as clear as it once was.

A chill in the air builds as it becomes apparent that you were not rightly clothed for this journey. Fear and sadness begins to overwhelm you as you ponder the fateful decision you made a while back.

The truth is there is no way you could have known your journey would turn out like this. Nor is there any reason to believe that the other path would have been a wiser choice. Yet in your mind you feel like you made a huge mistake.

Now it is completely dark. You are unable to see even your hand in front of your face. You are walking blind now trying to feel your way on this path.

You are frightened, your logical thoughts have now abandoned you. You are hungry and thirsty, but most of all you want to see something ahead that proves your journey is coming to an end on this path.

The hours now feel like days, weeks and months. You decide to stop, realizing that it is futile to go on any longer until you have some light, some direction. So you stop where you are at and nestle yourself between a couple of trees and try to wait it out until morning.

Your sleep is constantly being disturbed by strange noises and rustling in the woods. It is a difficult night as you ponder all of your decisions that you made that led you here.

Finally the sun begins to shine and you slowly become more aware of where you are now located. It begins to dawn on you that you are no longer on the correct path, in fact you don't seem to be on any path. Evidently through the night you wondered off the path because you were unable to see clearly.

You are completely lost and have no idea where to turn. In fact you are left with another decision. Do you turn back to try to find the path or go forward and see where it will lead?

The problem with life is there are always pathways and we are always being forced to choose. What we don't seem to grasp is who created the pathways? Who decided to lay down a road for each of us to follow? And then who decided to split that pathway in two forcing us to make another choice.

Often times like the woods scenario we are left trying to figure out what it is we are supposed to learn. As an example, how far does this particular path go. Is it a safe path or dangerous one. But we seldom are given the knowledge of why the path is there in the first place.

As above you are now off the path in the middle of the woods without any knowledge of where you are and worst of all where is it leading?

Does this not sound familiar in your own life. Do you often feel that you walked off the path and are now stuck in the middle of the woods having no clue where to turn. Do you instead of moving forward simply stand there and complain about the path not taken? Or is it that you decide to return to the pathway where you had left and continue to follow it? Or are you one who begins to realize that you need to create your own path in life?

Could it be that path's are created by others that left there signatures for us to follow. And that maybe the other traveler had no more clue than you where they were heading. Or maybe that was there path for them only and was not meant for you!

We all tend to make decisions in our life based upon what other's have done. We are given slogans like, "we have already done it and we are simply making it easier for you." That may be true to some extent, but what we fail to understand is that there path in life might not be yours.

What is so interesting about this story is that if the pathway in life has already been traveled by experienced and accomplished trekers, then why do we come to find that the path often splits in two? Why are we left holding the bag so to speak where now we must choose the correct path for us since they so graciously laid it all out for us?

The answer to this riddle laden paradox is that we have been approaching life all wrong. We have been trying to follow pathways other's have created and hoping for the best. We live in expectancy hoping that whatever we find that it suits our desires or we are going to become very disatisfied with life.

We tend to lack that adventurous spirit to learn on our own. We moan and complain because we are unhappy with the life that was laid out for us. Yet why should we, if we are trying to suit others, and walk the path of the many, then we should accept our lot in life because we have little to nothing to do with it.

Often we are sad because our choices were tainted with other people's ideas based on what they did. Just like coming to the pathway that splits in the woods. We think our only decision is to follow what has been laid out for us by what other's have done.

Yet in the true spirit of it all, true woods do not have pathways, they have unlimited opportunties. The potential directions are limitless. Our destinations are many!

The only woods that have pathways are ones that were carved out for us to tell us where to go without any real choice on our part. And the only choices in the woods with pathways are the ones that are arbitrarily created by others leaving us to follow after someone else rather than creating our own.

This is why we often feel used and treated unfairly in life, because we gave up our choices to follow someone else's choice. Sadly we fail to recognize that until it appears to be too late.

Sure we came to the fork in the road that was clearly marked for us as a pathway. And sure we made the choice which direction to follow. Sadly though, we failed to understand what it was we were truly looking for. Whenever following someone's else's pathway we only live to be dissapointed. We have no real value in our trek.

Example above with the story of walking in the woods. Now you realize you are lost. Who told you that you were lost? It is beacause your pathway is no longer clearly marked and you determine this means you are lost.

Ask yourself the question if the pathway that you chose was correct why did it lead you on a wild goose chase, never allowing you to know certain information, like how long would it take, will I be there before sundown etc.

Now of course this was just an example. Sometimes others clearly leave their pathway marked and well designed. Yet it still does not answer the riddle in that it might not be for you.

What are you supposed to do if the choice you follow was not your pathway?

The answer is simple!

When following someone else's path you are bound for dissapointment because it was not your path. It might be close to your path, it might have some familiararity to yours, but it was not yours!

Now is the moral of the story not to follow other people's pathways? Absolutely not, the moral is to learn by the experience of others, but in so doing always create your own path.

When you do this you will never get lost, you'll only be misdirected in which you can make the choice to do whatever you please to get back on your correct journey never feeling failure or dissapointment.

Here is the difference, the individual plotting his own journey would not feel lost if they had left the pathway, it would only be a new challenge to overcome. They would not feel the need to turn back because they would have a sense of the direction they were heading and continue to do so.

When you plot your own path you must learn the challenges yourself along with the pitfalls that arise. But you will never feel like a failure. You will always see a new and different opportunity to build on as a challenge not as a lost cause.

Remember failing is an attribute that only exists because of our belief that we are dissapointing others. If you are following your own path it truly does not matter if others are dissapointed it only matters that you are not!

The reason anyone becomes fearful and that horrible tendancy to feel like a failure arises within is because they were only following someone else's path, and you either became lost or it was not the path you would have chosen if you knew all the facts, and there is no real challenge in that. But there is a fear that if you leave that pathway in life you will become lost.

We never have to worry or concern ourselves with the path not taken. We only have to concern ourselves with all the new pathays we decide to create.

As the story in the woods, you do not know why you ended up leaving the path you were on, just maybe you were being directed for your own benefit and maybe just maybe that over the next ridge is your claim to fame in life's pot of gold, spiritually, mentally and physically. Those same riches that the other traveler that laid the foundation for the pathway that you were on, never found.

So remember when coming to the fork in the road, do not choose the path wisely, make your own!